Category: science fiction

The 100 Small Press Recommendations Are Up

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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A seal labeled 2025 100 Notable Small Press BooksThe 2025 list of 100 notable small press books is now up at Lit Hub. I was thrilled to work on this project along with about 40 other people under the gentle guidance of Miriam Gershow.

It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that I was reading science fiction and fantasy books for this project, which includes books from just about every genre you can think of, including poetry as well as prose. I noticed in going through the list that it includes several horror books as well as literary fiction and a lot of creative nonfiction.

Each reviewer was only able to provide capsule reviews of two or three books, which made the task very difficult. I read many other books that I really liked. Small presses are really publishing great things these days.

The books I recommended were:

Obviously you should check those out, but go read the whole list. You might find something from a genre you didn’t even know you liked!

Slow Down and Build Good Futures

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Why is everyone in such a goddamned hurry?

While there are things we need to hurry up and deal with – climate change and fascism spring to mind – the efforts to address both those areas seem to be plodding along. Meanwhile, the broligarchs are trumpeting what they’re calling AI and claiming that their concept of the future – one built on bad reading of “Golden Age” science fiction – is just a few years away.

Their ideas range from living on Mars in the next five (ten? twenty? thirty?) years to destroying the Earth so we can live throughout the Universe by the trillions, which I assume they think will happen in their lifetimes, though perhaps only if the singularity happens or some other form of immortality comes along to give them (but probably not the rest of us) infinite time.

It’s easy to poke holes in their lack of knowledge of any area except computer programming (and maybe even that). Even their physics seems wonky and as for their biology – well, let’s be real: we humans evolved on and with this planet. There is no place else in the Universe where we will fit as well. Destroying the Earth is taking away our perfect home.

It may be possible for us to live on other planets or in orbiting satellites, but there are a lot of challenges to that, challenges rooted in our biology and in physics in general, not to mention in the fact that we really know so damn little. There’s so much more we need to understand before we set out to colonize the universe, perhaps starting with whether we should be colonizing anything at all.

cover of The WeaveI wrote a novel about that: The Weave, which is about humans finding a habitable planet with an asteroid belt chock full of useful elements, a planet that turns out to be inhabited by intelligent beings who do not have human levels of technology, but have something else. I was thinking about the conquistadors in the Americas when I wrote it – the working title was Seven Cities of Gold and there are names and jokes on that theme throughout.

It is science fiction, meaning it is a thought experiment about how humans should approach meeting other intelligent beings, especially given some of the disasters in our history of meeting each other here on Earth. I’ll just note that the Earth I imagined was not destroyed to make this exploration possible, though it was far from a perfect society.

Biology. Physics. Ethics. Just a few of the things we have to consider as we explore beyond our planet or, for that matter, build future systems here on Earth.

There’s no need to be in a hurry about space exploration.

We have a perfectly good planet to live on – even with the challenges presented by our lack of attention to climate change – and, in fact, we could and should spend a lot of time and effort making sure we keep it livable for all and improve the infrastructure that makes a good modern life possible without destroying the core systems that make any kind of life possible.

It would make sense to get a properly balanced system working on Earth before we try to live anywhere else, because by doing that we’d figure out exactly what is necessary. Continue reading “Slow Down and Build Good Futures”…

Radical Hospitality

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Last weekend I saw a movie that combined science fiction with political activism and food: Earth Seed: A People’s Journey of Radical Hospitality. It was the start of the documentary’s national tour; you can see the schedule here.

The name Earth Seed, of course, comes from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. These books have not only resonated with science fiction readers over the years, but also have become focuses for activist groups. They seem all too relevant, in part because they were written in the 1990s about a future starting in 2024 that isn’t as far removed from our own as we would like it to be.

The People’s Kitchen Collective – an Oakland group that has been providing meals for events and gatherings for many years – decided in 2023 to do and film a pilgrimage up California from Los Angeles to Mendocino that echoes the path taken by Lauren in Parable of the Sower.

Along the way, they meet with various community groups and prepare amazing meals while having deep discussions with the people.

It is a movie that inspires activism and community building and, to use their phrase, radical hospitality. In fact, a great deal of the movie as well as the discussion after the screening focused on what those words truly mean.

The film begins in Los Angeles, particularly in Altadena, where it includes a visit to Octavia Butler’s grave. Many of the places where they filmed were destroyed in the fires earlier this year, which made the screening especially poignant. Continue reading “Radical Hospitality”…

Immortality

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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I plan to live forever or die trying.

I’ve been saying that for years, and most people get the joke. We human beings aren’t immortal. Like all other life on this planet, sooner or later our physical being gives out.

I will confess that I would like to live a really long time mostly because the story of the world will still be going on after I die and I hate stopping in the middle of a good story (or, for that matter, a scary story). But I don’t want to outlive my mind and I know bodies can’t last forever.

I have often thought that it would be good if humans had a longer life span than we currently experience on the off chance that more of us would develop some wisdom while we were still capable of doing something with it. These days things that happened forty or fifty years ago are treated like ancient history and yet those very things have a profound effect on what’s going on today. Unfortunately, too many people making decisions right now don’t understand what happened fifty years ago, much less a hundred and fifty years ago.

When I think of extending human life, I’m looking at our increased understanding of human health and ability to deal with diseases. Some of that comes from major advances in biology and medicine, but some of it is much more simple and basic than things like CRISPR or even open heart surgery.

Cleaning up the air – indoors as well as outdoors – can have a large effect on our health, just to throw out one example. And that’s not to mention changing work situations so that people don’t literally work themselves to death.

But even with some real progress, even if more people continue to thrive into their 100s, we’re still not going to become immortal. We’re animals and animals don’t live forever.

Unless, of course, you believe in the singularity and transhumanism and think we’re all going to be uploaded into some kind of digital selves. Continue reading “Immortality”…

For the Good of the Realm in Outcasts StoryBundle

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Covers of all the books in the Outcasts Storybundle.

My novel For the Good of the Realm is part of the Outcasts StoryBundle, curated by Danielle Ackley-McPhail.

As the description on the StoryBundle link says, “Outsiders. Rebels. Free-Thinkers. Who doesn’t love an underdog?” In all these books an outsider plays a key role even though they’re likely not appreciated.

As with all storybundles, you can get the whole package of ebooks for $20 or pay more if you’re so inclined.

Read more about the bundle on the eSpec Books blog.

personby Gillian Polack
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The changes in the US are reaching out over the world. Added to the increase in antisemitism and many more people are looking through a red veil and seeing hate or despite when the reality is we’re not communicating clearly. Whether I’m right or wrong or entirely evil in whatever I say, I feel like a mouse with cats both visible and invisible, just waiting to pounce. Some of my friends have gone quiet, which is sensible. I am sometimes not so quiet and a random cat pounces. The cat might be pouncing because I’m vermin or because they’re hyper-aware and see me as vermin, but either way…. they pounce.

And I need to think of nicer things. Not the cyclone. It was not, as cyclones go, a very big one. In fact, it was hardly a cyclone at all. The parts of SE Queensland and NE NSW it hit, though, included much flat land that was easily saturated with water. People talk about the hills of Brisbane, and yes, they are pretty. But Brisbane airport is 3m above sea level and it’s not the only part that’s so close to sea level. When there’s too much rain, the land becomes saturated quickly and Brisbane floods and the floods do not roll down the mountains to the sea… because a large part of the city has low elevation. On the Gold Coast, there is very little beach left, but beach can be restored. So far, all my friends and family in that region are fine, which is something.

You need some good news, right?

The first bit of good news has to do with water… from the opposite end to floods. There is a new book (ebook right now, and I’ll make a formal announcement when the paperback comes out) that talks about water and that intends to raise money to help people in very dry areas (Sahel-dry) manage water. I have an alternate history sarcastic little piece in it. You can find the ebook here:  Yemoja’s Tears

The second bit of good news is that later this week is Purim (the feast of Esther) and it’s obligatory for me to get drunk. This year I think I need it.

The Future We Want

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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I’ve been putting myself to sleep at night by envisioning the kind of future world I’d like to see. Being a science fiction writer as well as someone who has spent much of my life doing work toward social change, I’m always thinking about better systems.

But the combination of the polycrises we face (I’m deliberately using the plural of crisis here because we not only have multiple crises that affect each other – thus the poly – but each crisis has its own set of multiple components) with the forthcoming grifter/broligarch/religious and right wing extremist government has urged me more in that direction.

Given that the government will not only not be addressing the polycrises but will in fact be doing things that make them much, much worse, I cannot be satisfied by resistance. And given that the status quo was already shaky – very little being done about climate change, inequality, and the cost of housing, not to mention protecting the country from insurrectionists – I’m not feeling pumped up about trying to get back to that.

Yeah, we need the rule of law and the Constitution here in the United States, but both those things have some big flaws that should have been addressed a long time ago. Most of the resistance will be focused on keeping political things from getting too much worse, but it won’t be fixing any of the underlying problems.

So I am trying to envision what we could have. I recently read an essay Donella Meadows wrote in 1994, “Envisioning a Sustainable World,” and it inspired me to do more imagining of what kind of world we could have.

Meadows was one of the authors of the 1972 work Limits to Growth, which provided a guide to the problems we’re facing right now. You can find out more about her work here and download a free copy of Limits to Growth here:

Of course, I’ve been working on envisioning futures all along.  Lately, I’ve been reading some futurist thinking to help expand my ability to do that. You have to be careful with futurists, since many of them are tied in with tech bro thinking, but there are some very useful skills in that area that help you get past the “there’s no way that could happen” point.

You have to get past the “there’s no way that could happen” point before you can open your mind to anything new.

Continue reading “The Future We Want”…

Predicting the Future?

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Over twenty years ago I wrote a story about a young man who gets arrested on a trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras because a blood test shows he has XX chromosomes even though he appears to be male. The Louisiana of that story’s time – which was more or less right now – had passed a law making it a crime to present yourself as anything but your “natural” gender.

He ends up in a jail cell with drag queens, a lesbian wearing male clothes, a trans person who is taking steps toward transition, and a woman not unlike himself – someone born with all the appearance of a woman, but with XY chromosomes.

I told it from his – very clueless, in the beginning – point of view because I wanted the story to be about someone who had never even considered the possibility that he was anything other than a cis man being forced to confront the situation.

It was a great story, but I was never able to sell it. I’ve looked at it over the years and seen a couple of things I’d change as I’ve increased my understanding of these matters, but it’s still a good story.

It’s just too late to publish it, at least as science fiction. It’s basically real life now. It’s obvious that many places are going to be punishing people for being trans or even – shades of the past – for dressing in a way that belies your assigned gender.

Maybe I should make the revisions and try it on a non-genre fiction magazine or anthology. Isn’t realistic a hallmark of literary fiction?

I’m not usually someone who writes science fiction that can be seen as predictive, but it was clear to me more than twenty years ago that there were places in the United States that might well pass laws against people for not fitting into prescribed gender roles.

Of course, I wrote it as a warning. That’s why most people write dystopias, after all. However, given the current fetish of the broligarchs for stupid takes on science fiction and fantasy, it’s easy to believe people would have taken it as a good idea.

I don’t want to live in Margaret Atwood’s Gilead or William Gibson’s Jackpot, but apparently a lot of people do. Continue reading “Predicting the Future?”…

Living in Margaret Atwood’s Future

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Cover of the first edition of The Handmaid's TaleHistorian Timothy Snyder keeps telling us “Do not obey in advance” even as more and more people appear to be leaping up to kiss the ring (or perhaps a part of the anatomy) of the grifter now apparently headed back to the White House in the ultimate triumph of the January 6 insurrection.

This week in his newsletter he is looking at Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in a three-part series. The third should be available the same day this post appears; the first is here and the second here.

In the first part, he critiques The New York Times’s summary of the book on its current trade paper bestseller list (where, I am glad to note, the book, which first came out forty years ago, has appeared for 139 weeks). The Times’s 16-word summary reads: “In the Republic of Gilead’s dystopian future, men and women perform the services assigned to them.”

His whole piece is worth reading, but he sums it up here:

Christian Reconstructionism is now at the edge of power in the United States, and the attitude of the relevant people towards the female body and indeed towards rape is an essential element of what is happening and what is likely to happen.  Both-sidesism, prudery, and euphemisms are keeping much of the media from bringing this story together in time.  We will need clear language in general, and this novel in particular, to see the whole picture.  I will develop this in two posts to come.

In the second essay, he makes this point:

The Republic of Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale is not a purely invented world based on the law and culture of one religion or another.  It is a well-drawn post-America.

Prof. Snyder thinks this book is important to understanding where we are today and I certainly don’t disagree, though perhaps the most disturbing thing about what an accurate picture it paints of where we are is that the country did not take appropriate steps to head it off.

We can all argue about what those steps should have been, but I’ll leave that to others. I’m tired of dishing out blame. I’m more interested in fixes.

Alas, The Handmaid’s Tale, while an excellent description of one of the places we could be headed (the others being a utopia for certain tech bros and no one else or just the grifter’s unparalleled corruption accompanied by significant foreign influence) is not the best book for fixes. Continue reading “Living in Margaret Atwood’s Future”…

Some Thoughts on Gender and Community

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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One of the many things my sweetheart and I bonded over when we first got together was a love of Whileaway, the place where people live in Joanna Russ’s story “When It Changed.”

We’d both like to live there – that is, in the there before it changed.

I should point out that my sweetheart is a man and, for those of you who haven’t read the story, only women lived in Whileaway.

But he would, in fact, fit into that world rather well, despite being essentially and comfortably male.

It was, in fact, by being around him that I realized the most accurate statement of my gender is “not male.” That’s despite the fact that I’m the one with a sword and a black belt and, even though I know better, much more likely to end up in a physical fight.

I’m not talking about the kind of masculinity we often discuss as “testosterone poisoning” (though testosterone is not nearly as powerful as many believe) or the toxic masculinity of the fascists who just got elected.

It’s not as easily defined as that. It’s a maleness that is not uncomfortable in an all-female setting while still being itself.

I wanted to do many things in my life that were coded as male, but I never wanted to be a man. I am resolutely not girlie, nowhere near as feminine in interests or appearance as many of the trans women I know, but I am still comfortably a woman.

I set my pronouns as she or they because I don’t have a lot invested in my gender identity, but I would, in fact, correct you if you called me “he.” I am not male. (I wouldn’t be offended, but then I am not someone who gets subjected to intentional misgendering, another issue entirely.)

It isn’t likely to happen. I may be big and aggressive and loud, with a black belt and a law degree and an unwillingness to let people walk over me, but people don’t ever seem to take me as male. I don’t know if it’s the hair or the way my body’s shaped or just my presence, but something about me seems to say “female” to most people in much the same way that my quieter and calmer sweetheart’s presence seems to say “male.”

In fact, I suspect it’s my apparently obvious womanness that makes some men get very angry when I don’t turn tail or apologize profusely when they try to walk over me (or run me down with their cars). Women are supposed to quail before men like them, and I do not.

I often put that attitude down to years in martial arts, but as I reflect on it, I think the attitude was there long before I started training. Training made it safer for me to stand up to such men because it gave me tools to use in response, but I was always going to demand my rights.

Funny, though, while those men scream at me and clearly want to hit me or grab me, they never do. That might be because even as they are dismissing me as a girl and showing their contempt for me, they can read something in my presence that tells them it would be a bad idea to lay a hand on me.

I hope that’s the case. I make every effort to convey the attitude that messing with me is a bad idea. I may look like an old woman, but don’t assume I’m harmless just because you have some stereotypical idea of old women.

Continue reading “Some Thoughts on Gender and Community”…